Comments on: Danny Zamir, Convenor of IDF Soldiers Testifying About Gaza Abuse, is Himself Abused

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:28:40 +0000

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By: Gideon

Gideon — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 17:31:58 +0000

A minor correction to your translation of the excerpt from Zamir’s article (and you might consider including the link to the Hebrew original) – he doesn’t say an “innocent Arab civilian” but “innocent Western citizen”.

By: Alex Stein

Alex Stein — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:05:38 +0000

Well first of all Hamas’ statements about a truce fall into the category of their contrary statements to western media etc – I hope the Obama administration will pursue them to find out how serious they are. I’m a believer in 242, which means land for peace. Withdrawing from the OPT without a peace deal would be a strategic liability. Israel needs to pursue policies that will get Palestinian consensus on something along the lines of a Geneva Accords. This means stopping settlement expansion, removing checkpoints etc etc. But, given what’s happened in Gaza and Lebanon, unilateral withdrawal wouldn’t be very sensible.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:24:05 +0000

There’s no point in embarking on negotiations in Hamas if there is no possibility to end the conflict. Long-term truces are pointless; it would be better to stay in the OPT than to go down that road.

Just when I was beginning to believe you actually had a few good things, informative things to say about the conflict, you prove me wrong. A long-term truce is what Hamas is offering w/o any negotiations haven’t happened yet. For you to make the horrible statement that you’d rather continue Israel’s heinous Occupation because Hamas doesn’t offer you what you want BEFORE there’s been ANY negotiations is ridiculous. I’m sorry you don’t recognize that.

By: Alex Stein

Alex Stein — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:15:39 +0000

Wikipeida is good on the issue of recognition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition

Somehow, Hamas have to show that they acknowledge the right of Israel to sovereignty over part of the land – one per cent would do for me. Now Israel has done that – unfortunately it’s only shown it’s willing to create a Palestinian bantustan, but I believe that to be more than what Hamas are prepared to accept (the odd contrary statement to the western media notwithstanding, which should of course be pursued seriously by concerned third parties). There’s no point in embarking on negotiations in Hamas if there is no possibility to end the conflict. Long-term truces are pointless; it would be better to stay in the OPT than to go down that road.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:04:03 +0000

the international system works via recognition.

I don’t know what this means. It sounds like a definitive statement, but is empty of meaning.

I find it odd that you say that Hamas must recognize Israel, but Israel has no such obligation to recognize Hamas. And I don’t have a clue what you mean by “formal terms.” The PLO did not recognize Israel before it began negotiating with Israel. Why change the rules solely for Hamas?

I don’t believe either party needs to recognize the other BEFORE they negotiate. The goal of negotiations is to get to recognition & acceptance of ea. other. But this may not be a precondition (unless you merely want to set up terms that destroy the chance of any negotiation happening).

By: Alex Stein

Alex Stein — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:45:34 +0000

Richard – I don’t know what you mean by recognising Hamas. I am talking in formal terms – the international system works via recognition. The idea that Israel has to recognise Hamas is as meaningless as saying Iran should recognise Israel’s right to exist. Israel has done deals with the Palestinians over the issue of recognition – deals which unfortunately (and for this Israel has to take a large share of the responsibility) haven’t made much progress beyond the stage of rhetoric, but Hamas can’t even bring themselves to make that rhetorical commitment.

But if we were to accept your formulation, how would we get out of the morass? What if I said “Israel has no obligation to recognise Hamas unless and until Hamas is willing to recognise Israel”?

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:26:04 +0000

I think this comment was moderated as well & not published immediately. But it should’ve been since I approved a comment of yours yesterday fr. this IP. I’m a little befuddled why you’re in moderation given that you’re using the same IP as last night. I’ll look more closely at my moderation list to see if any of the IPs you use are still in there. But I already checked last night & they weren’t as far as I could tell.

But I do apologize for the inconvenience.